Mix a box of rice a roni in with your beef (Pete Rubish) and I think you’re golden
[quote]chobbs wrote:
Mix a box of rice a roni in with your beef (Pete Rubish) and I think you’re golden[/quote]
Not a bad idea. Any suggested flavors? I’ve never had it before.
I just spent the last hour and a half or so in an epsom salt bath, reading T3hPwnisher’s blog, “Mythical Strength”. Recommend searching it out.
Probably didn’t need that much magnesium though… I completely lost track of time.
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]chobbs wrote:
Mix a box of rice a roni in with your beef (Pete Rubish) and I think you’re golden[/quote]
Not a bad idea. Any suggested flavors? I’ve never had it before.[/quote]
creamy 4 cheese
[quote]LoRez wrote:
I love how sore my back is right now, lol. Not sarcasm. Putting 445 on my back felt good.[/quote]
Mythical strength, awesome blog, I’ve just finished reading back to the begining myself, outside the box thinking and training idea’s that seem to work for him. That’s for sure, Nice lifting by the way. Later
Couple questions .
- How many days a week are you squatting?
- I see some type of pin press pyramid for heavier weights, what else are you doing for squat? Reps /sets/days?
- Once these are answered- ill probably say consider some more volume at working sets. This will build your squat and form base much better…and add some b.w your chasing at the same time.
- We are on a similiar path squat wise. Both switching from lowbar to highbar while sucking at squatting.
- I started high volume and low weight and so far its paying off. Also my unbelted pause squat day I added in has been priceless. Nothing resurects your weakness in squatting than this.least for me.
- All this soreness you walk around w. Sucks. I did it most of last year. By doing the above…im zt least 80 percent less sore than I was… im in the 8 th week of implementing all of this and loving it. I set a p.r for beltless paused squats monday and going for a 10 sets of 3 p.r this friday.
- Goodluck on your journey. Its a battle. Dont be afraid to try something…may be the best thing u ever did…
Squats
bar, overhead squats w/bar
45, 95, 135, 155, 175, 195, 205, 215, 225, 235, 240 x 2
245 x 1, 250 x 0
210 x 3 x 2
Ow. Sore again. Walking like an old man even. Now it’s my anterior hip area, mostly. The hip extension at the top of the squat is what hurt.
But this morning and during the day, I felt absolutely amazing. I’m more flexible and mobile through my hips than I’ve ever been. I really wasn’t that bad to begin with, but I’m much better now. Feels good.
And because it feels good, I figured it probably was a bad thing, lol. While the Russians focused on recovery techniques like ice baths and stuff, it turns out Abadjiev of the Bulgarians discouraged it. His goal was to continue to up the stress, forcing constant adaptation… and recovery hindered that long term adaptation.
Anyway, wasn’t a bad workout… but it’s interesting how the soreness migrates. Where I was sore last week, I’m strong. Where I was strong last week, I’m sore. I also think those overloads yesterday did a number on my back.
The 3x2 worksets at the end were awful. But eh.
–
In other news, I picked up 6lbs of ground beef and 6 boxes of that rice-a-roni. There’s a pot on the stove waiting for me right now.
And my protein powder and stuff has been delivered, but I can’t pick it up until the front office is open. It’ll be interesting to get a comparative difference since my daily workouts are basically the same.
–
Meanwhile, epsom salt bath + ricearoni + milk.
[quote]barbedwired wrote:
Couple questions .
- How many days a week are you squatting? [/quote]
Right now, 6. Ramping to 1RMs 5 of those.
Before that, 3 days a week. However, I was lifting 5-7 days a week then, with daily 1RM ramps + plenty of volume, so I’d already built up a decent work capacity CNS-wise. These are training 1RMs… good form, good speed, not psyched-up.
I’m trying an adaptation of Christian Thibaudeau’s “High Pull Blitz” article, applied to squats. He suggested 2-3 weeks only. I’m in week 2.
M: Ramp to 2RM, then 1RM. Drop 20lbs off 1RM and do 5 singles.
T: Ramp to 2RM, then 1RM. Keep decreasing ROM and overload to max. I’m using pins for this.
W: Ramp as before. Drop 20lbs off 2RM and do 3 doubles.
R: Repeat Tuesday.
F: Ramp as before. Drop 10% off 1RM and do 2 cluster sets of 4-6 reps. Clusters = do a rep, wait 5-10s, do a rep, repeat.
Sat: Ramp to 80% of the highest 1RM this week. No work sets.
Sun: Off.
Now… as far as what’s really going on:
Intensity-wise, Monday and Friday are both Heavy (90-92%), Wednesday is Medium (75-85%). Load-wise, Monday and Wednesday is about the same, and Friday is double that. Tuesday and Thursday are overload days. Saturday is a slight deload.
I’ve actually done a fair amount of squatting… I’m just weak, lol. I ran 20-rep squats for over 3 months last year, increasing 10-30lbs a week. Worked up to 1.4xBW for 20.
Heavy squats, i.e. low rep range, is pretty new to me. After testing my 1RMs for that BULKING competition in BSL, I realized that while my 20RM is actually decent, my 1RM is horrible. Currently it’s sitting at 1.8xBW, so in a relative sense it’s not too bad, but in an absolute sense it is.
I’m pushing for a minimum of 2xBW right now. Single-minded focus on that.
[quote]4. We are on a similiar path squat wise. Both switching from lowbar to highbar while sucking at squatting.
5. I started high volume and low weight and so far its paying off. Also my unbelted pause squat day I added in has been priceless. Nothing resurects your weakness in squatting than this.least for me.[/quote]
It’s interesting how much different pin squats slightly-above-parallel are than
free squats. Starting from the bottom and a pause definitely seems to be a good thing.
Outside of a couple days, I’ve actually not been sore walking around. I had some bad DOMS intially with higher-rep stuff, but with singles it’s a completely different soreness. It’s pretty much gone by morning, if not even just a few hours after.
Excellent, and good luck.
Thanks, you too.
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]LoRez wrote:
I love how sore my back is right now, lol. Not sarcasm. Putting 445 on my back felt good.[/quote]
:)[/quote]
You know, I didn’t realize until this morning that that was almost exactly 3x bodyweight (3x148.2 = 444.6).
Back was a touch weak squatting today. No surprise.
Thanks for the lay out -pretty clear now. Volume should be adequate. Ya I get dff soreness at diff intensities. Im now at the point where I have doms the night of. But a hotshower, water n fish oil before bed takes care of most of it and ill wake slightly sore and stiff. Anything CT lays out should provide strength and muscle!
Squats (again?)
stretching at bottom and overheads w/bar
45, 95, 135, 155, 175, 195, 205, 215, 225 x 2, 235 x 1/0 (missed 2nd rep due to form, actually made the rep though)
240, 245 x 1, 250 x 0
Pin 6: 255, 265 x 1
Pin 7: 275, 285, 295, 305, 315, 325, 335, 345, 355, 365, 375 x 1 (PR, was 340)
Pin 8: 385, 395, 405, 415, 425, 435, 445, 455, 465, 475 x 1 (PR, was 445)
I actually probably could have done more at Pin 8, but I feel like I broke my back.
Form cue-wise, I’m strongest from the pins if I just think about extending my hips, not pressing against the floor. This is probably a “duh” statement, but yeah.
Holy shit. 475. Let my back recover from this and I might be able to hit 500 next Thursday.
I’ve actually been holding the pin reps about 1-2 seconds at the top too, so I’m getting something from it. And actually, it’s the “bounce” at the top that hurts the most, as the bar flexes.
Protein arrived today, so I loaded with 20/20 (Peptopro/HBCDs) about an hour before, and 20/40 for periworkout (half before, half during). Not much food during the day though. Busy workday. I’ll make it up tonight and tomorrow.
Well, my back wasn’t ready for squats tonight. It hurt reracking the bar, as the weight was unloaded. I called things short because of it. I’d rather not pull tendons, ligaments or fascia in my back right now. Upper midback area. Low back is fine.
But…
Squats
stretching: 45 down deep, 45 overhead and down deep
45, 95, 135, 155, 175, 195, 215, 225 x 2
235 x 1
Stopped there. There were supposed to be 90% work sets, but my back wasn’t quite ready. Need to build up the resiliency of the tendons and ligaments around my scapula. If I understand my anatomy well enough, it’s the wide tendon sheath that connects the mid and lower traps to the scapulae that are actually sore right now. 475 was a bit of a load.
Good news is, 225 is starting to feel like 135 used to. And I can hit 235 consistently, which was my true 1RM as of a week ago Monday.
–
Overhead lockout presses with suspended weight (I’ll need a name for this)
115 x 3, 3, 3
I have loading pins that I can put weight plates on, and those are suspended by chains to the bar. This allows me to do lockout presses since the pins in my rack don’t go up anywhere near high enough. It’s adjustable just as any chains are. The fact that the weight is suspended also adds a good stability component.
115 was too heavy to start with this, and my right elbow wasn’t feeling good, but I’m glad I have this setup figured out again.
Tomorrow I’ll do my squats to 80% of this weeks 1RM; so, squats to 215. Then I’ll probably play with these lockout presses some more. Tomorrow’s essentially my free day to do whatever I want [after the squats]. CT benched, but I want my overhead press goal next after I get these squats.
Nevermind, I don’t know my anatomy. I’m not exactly sure where I’m sore.
Midback. How about that. Lol.
Some numbers:
Week 1 Daily 1RMs: 255, 250, 250, 225, 245
Week 2 Daily 1RMs: 267, 245, 245, 245, 235
Week 1 Max: 255
Week 2 Max: 267
Week 1 Average: 245
Week 2 Average: 247.4
Not sure what the significance is yet. I’ll need more data.
Two notable things:
- Trend is upward. I AM getting stronger.
- Much less deviation on Week 2 maxes.
It’s also important to note that my squat form changed between the weeks. I’m not even sure I was parallel the first week. I know for sure I was below parallel the second week. So, strength gains may have actually been more than this indicates. Not enough data.
Slow. And steady.
I’m really excited to follow your progress LoRez, I want to see you get huge
Slow and steady is the path to hugeness? We’ll see.
Squats
45, 95, 135, 155, 175, 195, 205, 215 x 2
Back’s still touchy. Legs feel kind of weird. Not exactly stiff, almost swollen (but not). I don’t have a good word.
Overhead Press Lockouts w/Suspended Weights
95 x 8, 105 x 5 x 5
Just messing around with these. Tried to get a little volume, even if it’s still pretty light. I might just try working on some ROM progression with this, working down to the point where my shoulders actually hurt. Maybe I’ll get back to the point where I can do full ROM without aggravating anything.
Feels good to be pressing overhead again.
–
Food-wise, two things:
- Chipotle Tabasco makes rice-a-roni with beef taste much better. It’s kinda magical.
- I found a whey protein flavor that I really like. I think I had 7 scoops with milk yesterday because I wasn’t paying attention. It just tasted good, so I kept mixing it up and drinking it. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
At that rate though, I could probably go through two pounds of whey a week, lol.
Training Thoughts
I’ve been using some sort of ramp-to-max + work set approach for a little over 6 months now, so I think I’m now somewhat qualified to talk about it.
In the beginning, I was following a “program” by CT. It gave me a framework for one lift a day, with high-impact lifts. Basically: Press, Pull, Press, Pull, Deadlift. This got me to try some things out and see how they affected me.
Things I learned:
-
Benching has made a noticeable improvement on my physique, and slight-incline is building muscle where I want. I dropped the slight-decline altogether, since while I was stronger in that position, it was building my lower chest too much relative to my upper chest. Long ways to go either way, but there was enough post-workout pump to tell what was happening.
-
SGHPs were a good thing to do for awhile. They really taught me about explosiveness, since as the weight gets higher, you simply can’t just muscle it up. The more force you can build with your legs, glutes and calves, the more weight you can lift. Physique-wise, this was great for my calves and my upper back. My girlfriend commented that my traps are like mountains (and she said I need to work on my arms, lol). I feel like this is a good lift to make sure everything stays in balance – something to work in every few months, but not really a regular. (Opinions are subject to change.)
-
The explosiveness that I learned from the SGHPs helped me really understand how to apply it to benching. All my benching was from pins. Besides being a safety issue if I pushed too hard, I learned how to build up the energy at the bottom before exploding the weight off the pins. It also let me get a good feel for my setup, bar position, hand position, and elbow position to get the most force from the bottom. Plus, I’m convinced that explosiveness is an ingredient to size.
-
Snatch-Grip Deadlifts are a pain. I haven’t mastered the use of straps, so the setup just always took awhile. The lift itself taught me a lot about how to position my body to generate force, without my knees getting in the way. It’s just… I slacked off on these because the setup was so time-consuming. I didn’t mind how much work it took to do them though. If I figure that out, I might do more of these. I haven’t done enough of these, nor conventional deadlifting, to really say much one way or another.
-
While there were definite changes to my physique (SGHPs especially), I didn’t get much stronger. Other people doing various layer setups seemed to get stronger, but I wasn’t. It could have been food, it could have been programming. I got more hypertrophy out of the “strength” focused setup than I did out of the hypertrophy one.
-
Lifting daily agreed with me. One lift a day, with lots of work and volume was also good for me. It kept me consistent.
-
The ramp, then do worksets as a percentage, autoregulation approach was really easy once I got into it. Start light, add weight, repeat until you can’t do more. Then take 10% off the bar or whatever and do more. 10% is just… what you were currently lifting, minus a zero. Lifting 150? remove 15 lbs. Lifting 300? remove 30 lbs.
-
Periworkout nutrition, e.g., Plazma, works very well for reducing cumulative fatigue in a session. I’ve been using 1 part PeptoPro + 2 parts HBCDs + electrolytes. Since I’m not focusing on a pump, some of the other magic in Plazma isn’t relevant.
–
The bad:
-
I wasn’t really getting stronger.
-
I had trouble getting good feedback from CT:
-
One question I asked about how to measure progression over time. I looked at it in terms of volume, load, volume at various intensities, reps done per cluster, from a daily max standpoint… just trying to get an idea of what I’m supposed to watch as an indicator of “is it working?”. I didn’t get a real answer from anyone.
-
Another question, I was trying to figure out what the difference was between the “max strength” and the “max size” layer setups. As in, what makes it size vs strength focused. I broke down the two programs into “load at intensity range”, trying to understand it. Got no feedback.
-
Another question, recently, about the High Pull Blitz approach, I was trying to understand why certain loads and volumes were selected for certain days. Again, no feedback.
-
This just left me with a program that kinda worked, kinda didn’t, and no good information how to tweak it to make it work better for me.
–
On the other hand, I’ve now discovered
- Nick Horton and his Squat Nemesis program,
- John Broz and his Bulgarian-based training [he studied under Krastev who studied under Abadjiev],
- several Russian programs that really lay out how they focus on load, volume, intensity and frequency
- the really helpful Modified Bulgarian thread in the Powerlifting subforum,
- infinite_shore’s “how do you train” thread, who uses a similar approach,
- a handful of resources on Abadjiev and Broz and so on, e.g., Matthew Perryman’s site Myosynthesis
This gets me a little bit closer to the source methods of using a ramp-to-max + worksets, and a better understanding of how to measure and manipulate volume and intensity.
Sometimes I think CT just toys with an effective idea, but doesn’t really work with it long enough or hard enough to know how to get the most out of it. Just an observation; not a bad thing. He, for sure, turned me onto this training approach and a few new movements and cues.
I want to run with this daily-max + backoff volume approach for awhile, but with movements that benefit me. And I want to get a better understanding for how much volume, in which movements, actually generate the most strength gains.
My strength-goals for now are:
2x BW squat (ATG)
1.5x BW bench (slight incline, from pins)
1x BW overhead press (olympic press, backbend is acceptable, leg drive isn’t)
something something deadlift
Physique goals will be considered only after I hit all of those.
–
Ok, so, going forward:
-
keep squatting daily. After another week (week 3) of this “blitz” program, do a deload week that involves daily squatting to max but no work volume. Then switch to something more like Nemesis. (Ramp to 3, 2, 1. Start at 70% go up in triples. 2x5 at 50%). Deload every 3 weeks. Consider alternating back and front squats.
-
add in overhead pressing. Since I’m already squatting daily, work this in slowly. Eventually get to 3x a week. How my shoulders feel will be the biggest factor in how this plays out. ROM progression might be the approach, it might not be. Two weeks to decide.
-
once overhead press is in and moving up, add bench back in. Not sure how this will look yet.
-
deadlift once a week (or every other week) for a single ramp. Let the squats build my deadlift for now.
-
occasional overloaded pin squats might be a good idea. There’s some value in knowing my back is strong enough to handle the load… and making it strong enough.
-
rows or pullups or both will probably be added. These may be instrumental in “fixing” my shoulder problems. They may not. The rotator work from overheads (and lockouts) may be enough.
– MOST IMPORTANT
-
The daily maxes need to be going up. If they’re not, something is wrong, and I need to adjust volume, volume at various intensities, or even exercise selection. Size doesn’t matter until I hit those strength goals. The daily maxes are the indicator of progress. Everything else is there to drive those maxes up. This is something that’s NOT taught in the layer system, but is a core part of the Bulgarian-derived systems.
-
On a related note, one approach I’ve seen is “if you hit your max today, stop”; “if you don’t hit your max today, do some work sets”. Seems like a simple rule. I may adopt it eventually. For now, work sets every time.
FIN
Wow, thats alot of work, I’ve always found Cts programs interesting, I just have a simple aproach to strength training, and found his programs over complicated for my taste, but knowlagable, my son follows most of Cts programs, and he’s built much like yourself, he struggle’s for size. he was doing layer’s but I’m not sure right now. Anyway, you should be getting an ‘‘A’’ for effort, if nothing else. Good stuff !